VM lifecycle
After a VM is provisioned, you can stop and restart it, resize it,
open a console, take snapshots and restore them, clone it, or delete
it. Every operation is reversible except delete.
States
| State | Meaning |
|---|---|
| PROVISIONING | Boot disk being prepared. Operation still running. |
| STARTING | Compute reserved, guest booting. |
| RUNNING | Guest is up and reachable. |
| STOPPING | Graceful shutdown in progress. |
| STOPPED | Off, but boot disk preserved and still billed. |
| DELETING | Resources being torn down. |
| DELETED | Terminal. VM no longer billed. |
Start, stop, restart
Open the VM detail page (Compute → click the VM). The quick-actions row has start, stop, and restart. Stop issues a graceful shutdown; force stop is offered only when graceful stop has stalled. Stopping preserves the boot disk and any attached data disks — restart brings the VM back with the same hostname, networks, public IPv4, and firewall rules.
Compute is still reserved while stopped, so the VM continues to bill at the same hourly rate. Delete the VM if you want compute charges to stop.
Resize
From the VM detail page, click Resize in the quick-actions row. A modal opens — set the new vCPU and RAM and confirm. The modal shows the price delta and warns that the VM will reboot.
Because the CPU and memory of a running guest can't be changed live, resize is a stop → patch → start sequence. Expect 10–60 seconds of downtime depending on how long the guest takes to shut down gracefully. Boot disk, data disks, network, public IPv4, and firewall rules survive.
Console (serial & VNC)
When SSH isn't an option — boot loop, broken sshd, cloud-init wedged — use the console. VM detail page → Console tab. The browser embeds a terminal directly (serial) or a graphical session (VNC), no extra tooling needed. Use the pop out button to detach the console into its own window.
Snapshots
A snapshot is a point-in-time copy of a VM's definition and every attached disk. Snapshots are project-scoped, billed at 50% of the boot-disk per-GiB rate, and remain available even after the source VM is deleted.
VM detail → Backups tab. Click Create backup, give it a name, save. To restore: Compute → Create VM, switch to From backup, pick the snapshot, configure the new VM, create. The boot disk is materialized from the snapshot.
Restoring brings back the boot disk only — attached data disks aren't re-attached automatically. Recreate them from their own snapshots if needed.
Clone
Clone is snapshot-then-restore in one click. VM detail → Clone in the quick-actions row. Set the new VM's display name; optionally override the shape; click clone VM. The server snapshots the source and provisions a new VM whose disks start as a copy. Your custom firewall rules are copied; the network is not — the clone lands on the source VM's network, not a new one.
Monthly billing controls
Only relevant for VMs in a monthly billing mode. Hourly VMs have no term.
- Auto-renew — when on, the wallet is debited at term-end for another term at the current rate. Set at create time on the dashboard.
- Renew now — immediately charges the wallet for one more term, regardless of how much of the current term is left.
Delete
VM detail → Danger tab → Delete. Type the hostname to confirm; the dialog shows the final cost (any partial-hour usage). The boot disk is released by default — snapshot first if you want to keep the data.
What's next
- SSH keys — register reusable keys per project.
- Public IPv4 — pricing, attach, default-deny.
- Firewall rules — control inbound traffic.